Carla Drysdale
Dream as Reliquary

His name was 10100 and he drove
Like a rock star over bulldozed cement

Shards, statuary and steep steps
Until we got to the edge

Between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
He made a pit stop, got out of the car,

Laid back against stone,
Unzipped and she sucked him.

He was young and had smooth skin.
He asked where I was going. I said Brooklyn.

We drove on sidewalks in his Lincoln
Continental to the stadium

Where I was going to have him
Let him have his way with me

People were there. He said it appears
I have a gig. He said you write poetry?

Fiction I can read
With tea and sympathy?

He said he was from Ottawa and I said
I was born in London, Ontario.

Surprise Canadians. He left me there
While he went to talk with his manager.

I wrote everything in Siri scrawl
The color of public memorials.

Carla Drysdale is the author of the poetry collections Little Venus (Tightrope Books, 2009) and Inheritance (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Spiraling, Public Pool, Cleaver Magazine, PRISM International, The Same, LIT, Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, Global City Review, and Literary Mama, among other journals, and in the anthology Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo. In May, 2014 she was awarded PRISM’s annual Earle Birney poetry prize for her poem, “Inheritance.” Born in London, Ontario, she lives with her husband and two sons in Ornex, France. To learn more, visit www.carladrysdale.com.

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Amy Gordon
Lady, You’re Such a Beautiful!

I saw the Statue of Liberty. And I said to myself, Lady, you’re such a beautiful! You opened your arms and you get all the foreigners here. Give me a chance to prove
that I am worth it, to do something, to be someone in America.
—Greek immigrant.

Brooklyn Bridge
a rare warm day in March 2017
Bicyclists trill their bells
race through the maze of tourists taking selfies
Liberty
stands across the harbor  holding up her torch
beside a gang of cranes
red-orange sky behind the scene

Imagine for a moment
percolating archetypes in 1865:
robust  half-naked women
Britannia of Britain Marianne of France
& then came Libertas goddess
worshipped by emancipated slaves
in ancient Rome  Bartholdi  sculptor
clothed Liberty in classic robes
intended her to wear
the pileus
emblematic cap of liberty and freedom

No    said the warriors
of our defeated South
no
and Bartholdi chose
a crown instead
seven rays to form an aureole
to light the seven seas &
seven continents He meant
her to hold a broken chain
another metaphor
he never dared to execute   A broken shackle
& a chain lie instead at Liberty’s right foot  reappear
before the left one
half-hidden by her robes Difficult to see

Gustave Eiffel  engineer  forged an iron truss
to hold her skin   It’s thin
made of copper sheets   Once a dun
dull copper color  she’s grown weathered by salt
& sun. She glows with verdigris
People say they like her green   It softens her
Give me your tired  your poor
Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free
wrote Emma Lazarus   She aided Jews
who fled the massacres
among them my great-grandparents
& their five daughters who sailed
four suitcases between them all
past Liberty
carrying my genes
here to the city of New York

Twelve-year-olds in camps dubbed “jungles”
call home on cell phones
to Syria
to tell their mothers who remain
in bombed-out
cities  not to worry  they are fine

Throngs of people walk both ways to cross the bridge
A gull flies over waves
wheels close to Liberty to bring her news
They’re not he calls
They’re not he cries
They’re notletting them in

Amy Gordon is the author of numerous books for young readers, including When JFK Was My Father (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) and Painting the Rainbow (Holiday House, 2014), both works of historical fiction haunted by helpful ghosts. Her poems have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Aurorean, Plum, and the anthology Transition: Poems of the Aftermath (Indolent Books, forthcoming).

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Karen Hildebrand
Damage Control

“Kissed, not baked.” Tell that
to the seething patch of scaly red
currently ravaging my cheekbone.
Ticking time bomb, that one,
still stewing over the makeout
session we had in the backyard
in 1974. Yes, I said backyard!
It wasn’t even the beach.
How long will she hold
a grudge, it’s fair to ask.

Karen Hildebrand’s recent poetry publications include, “Steve Bannon Visits the White House” (What Rough Beast, Indolent Books), “Benefits (in the voice of Kellyanne Conway)” (Maintenant 11, Three Rooms Press) and “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (Portable Boog City Reader). “A History of Feminism,” forthcoming in great weather for MEDIA’s anthology, was a finalist for the 2017 Disquiet Literary Prize. In 2013, her work was adapted for the play, The Old In and Out, produced in NYC. She lives in Brooklyn and is chief content officer for Dance Magazine.

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Tom Daley
Moses

The fire contaminates the drone’s
rounded pursuit.

A pillar where the ancient favor
lost its curve.

To cradle is an old cliché,
something framed

from difficult preoccupations,
from different hugenesses—

the basket in the bulrushes,
for example,

sinking from the weight
of the stone tablets

imagined, between sleep
and discovery,

in the infant pilot’s hand.

Tom Daley is the author of House You Cannot Reach—Poems in the Voice of My Mother and Other Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2015). His poetry has appeared in Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, 32 Poems, Fence, Denver Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Barrow Street, Prairie Schooner, Witness, Poetry Ireland Review, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Hacks: Ten Years on Grub Street (Random House, 2007); Poets for Haiti (Yileen Press, 2010); The Body Electric (CreateSpace, 2013); and Luminous Echoes (Into the Void, 2017). He leads writing workshops in the Boston area and online for poets and writers working in creative prose.

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Bette Jane Camp
Banished

In the freezing marsh, cattails call down the Queen
of Winter, Empress of White Rivers, and some
trees even bow back.
//////////
We can only waltz like this if we want her
to see us. But down by the footbridge,
we’re better off trying to guess which animal
left the three-pronged tracks along the river’s frozen
flanks. Oh, she knows who’s cold on earth. She watches for
the green, the democratic. We can only wonder / which
animal was banished to the other bank.

Bette Jane Camp’s poems appear or are forthcoming in FORTH Magazine, Blind Glass Magazine and the Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation. She hails from Mukilteo, Washington and currently lives and works in Vermont.

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Eileen Tabios
From The Ashbery Riff-Offs
—where each poem begins with 1 or 1-2 lines from “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery

Witnessed in the Convex Mirror: Eco Echo

But it is the first step only, and often
remains a frozen gesture of welcome etched
by regret on memory as a hand held back
from rising for a handshake. Therein did die
the possibility of a hug—nor is this political
When one is caught in a winter threatening
to descend into permanence, become naked
with others before huddling together under
the lone, remaining blanket. Skin against skin
heats all bodies regardless of which candidate
received their votes. A welcome should never
remain mere possibility. Our blood gasps for
hemoglobin. The planet is dying and our
thinning limbs quake in its weakening grasp

Eileen R. Tabios has released about 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in eight countries and cyberspace. Her most recent include The Opposite of Claustrophobia (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, 2017) and Amnesia: Somebody’s Memoir (Black Radish Books, 2016). Forthcoming poetry collections include Mantattan: An Archaeology (Paloma Press, 2017). Inventor of the poetry form “hay(na)ku,” her poetry has been translated into eight languages. She also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 12 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays as well as served as editor or guest editor for various literary journals. More information is available at eileenrtabios.com.

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Billy Malanga
Question Everything

Question everything.
People typically overstate themselves.
Question authority, it seeks the yes man.
Lean in.
To hell with zones!
Go outside of them, run towards twilight.
There’s brilliance there.
All sophisticated opinions strip down to suicide.
Stand boldly on the ground; it’s a good fight.
Question trust.
Question research.
Question freedom.
Question strangers.
Question religion.
Your demons will chase you into the gutter.
Wash their nasty faces with a scum rag
soaked in whiskey. They don’t like things
that smell and burn.
You can’t make it through the program
by avoiding the bastards.
Question your family.
There will come a day
when your questions are
no longer understood.

Billy Malanga’s recent poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Creativity Webzine, The Write Launch, Picaroon Poetry, and other journals. Billy is a first generation college graduate, U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and the grandson of Italian immigrants. He currently lives in Urbana, Illinois and is relocating to Auburn, Alabama in August 2017.

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Carla Drysdale
Frontalier

Carla Drysdale is the author of the poetry collections Little Venus (Tightrope Books, 2009) and Inheritance (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Spiraling, Public Pool, Cleaver Magazine, PRISM International, The Same, LIT, Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, Global City Review, and Literary Mama, among other journals, and in the anthology Entering the Real World: VCCA Poets on Mt. San Angelo. In May, 2014 she was awarded PRISM’s annual Earle Birney poetry prize for her poem, “Inheritance.” Born in London, Ontario, she lives with her husband and two sons in Ornex, France. To learn more, visit www.carladrysdale.com.

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Peter E. Murphy
In Due Time

Lately, I’ve been watching the twenty-four-hour
webcam where Mr. President and The First Lady,
a pair of bald eagles, take turns feeding their young.
She rips a dead rat into pieces the little one can swallow.
He offers it an alewife still quivering in his talons.

I wasted a day to see if the fledgling, its leg wedged
between sticks in the nest, died or got free.
Some praised the men who climbed the 80 foot
poplar to rescue it. Others condemned them,
said they should let nature take its course.

Mostly Mr. President and The First Lady live apart.
He flies over a swamp that needs to be drained.
She perches on a tower looking down at the world,
grooming her son to take his father’s place.

Peter E. Murphy is the author of Stubborn Child (Jane Street Press, 2005), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; Challenges for the Delusional (Jane Street Press, 2005), a book of writing prompts; and four poetry chapbooks. His recent essays and poems appear or are forthcoming in The Common, Diode, Guernica, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The New Welsh Reader, Rattle, Word Riot, and Poems in the Aftermath (an online poetry feature forthcoming as a print anthology from Indolent Books). He is the founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University. www.peteremurphy.com.

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Karen Hildebrand
Global Positioning System

Every day is the long way.
Thumping rabbits, we consult maps
and follow traffic patterns of snaking
stars, our calendars full of spiders.
It’s enough to make us long
for a commute in the high branches
of a rain forest, where we can squat
and bray at those who maintain a crease

in their trousers. Whenever we feel lonely,
we cram our way onto the L-train
to bask in the radiant heat of groomed
facial hair at close range. We eat cake

to forget, happily building a tent
of powdered sugar on our upper lips
and leaving a trail of sprinkles behind
like a spell to ward off doom.

Karen Hildebrand’s recent poetry publications include, “Steve Bannon Visits the White House” (What Rough Beast, Indolent Books), “Benefits (in the voice of Kellyanne Conway)” (Maintenant 11, Three Rooms Press) and “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (Portable Boog City Reader). “A History of Feminism,” forthcoming in great weather for MEDIA’s anthology, was a finalist for the 2017 Disquiet Literary Prize. In 2013, her work was adapted for the play, The Old In and Out, produced in NYC. She lives in Brooklyn and is chief content officer for Dance Magazine.

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If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.

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